


Stand and Deliver

by damalur



Series: The Unexamined Life [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/pseuds/damalur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Think of it as personality dialysis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand and Deliver

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Me (It's What's For Dinner)](http://damalur.dreamwidth.org/575164.html) and beta read by Odyle, who deserves better than this crack.

Fenris was still disgruntled when they went to Fortress Haine. Hawke treated it as a lark, of course, a pleasant overnight visit to the countryside instead of the serious matter it was. Fenris found himself striving to be attentive enough for the both of them, but it wasn't an easy thing when Danarius's face hid in his dreams. He found himself thinking about the man more after his death than he ever did when the tyrant was alive.

Isabela, however, was eating it all up. Fenris suspected she had already lured a young noble or three back to her bedchamber, possibly with a trail of crumbs.

"You seem more churlish than usual," she said, biting into an apple. "Would you like a massage?"

"No."

"A canapé?"

"Not you too," he groaned, and set his sword aside with slightly more force than was necessary. That dent on the table would be hardly noticeable in candlelight. He hoped.

"Ah, Hawke been after you?"

"He ate a whole platter of the damned things for breakfast. They aren't even real food, merely the affectation of a lot of fools with more coin than common sense."

"I think Hawke likes how tiny they are."

Fenris didn't dignify that with an answer. "Go away."

"I love how you don't mean that. Come on now, what's really troubling you?"

"You aren't digging for blackmail material again, are you?" Fenris eyed her; she looked no more predatory than usual and perhaps even approached a state of relaxation, although he'd learned that in Isabela languidness had very little to do with what lay beneath the surface.

"I," Isabela said, "would _never._ "

He countered with a grunt. "It's nothing. Dreams."

"Oho, nightmares, you mean. Does Hawke know about this?"

"If he doesn't, he's even stupider than I imagined," Fenris said. He'd learned long ago to stifle his cries in the dark, but it was hard to share a lover's bed every night without becoming aware of their nocturnal habits.

Isabela bit into her apple with a crack that set Fenris's teeth to grinding. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"I don't want to talk about it. That's the point."

"You should," she said. "He's worried about you—"

"—I doubt it—"

"He is, I can tell. If you don't think he spends his waking hours fretting about you, you need to have your head checked by Anders."

" _Fretting?_ " Fenris said, because that didn't sound like the Hawke he knew, and he'd known Hawke intimately.

"Oh yes. Or trying to impress you. Like a puppy. Maybe one of those Ferelden war hounds."

"That...doesn't sound like Hawke."

"Pay better attention," Isabela said, as though she had some special insight into Hawke's thick skull. Maybe she did; they were as crazy as one another.

"And if that doesn't work, try a different mattress," she added. "You could do with more back support. If you ask me, that's the root of the problem."

"Go away," Fenris said again. It didn't work. It never did.

-

"I brought you something," Hawke said that evening, when he paraded into their bedchamber. Fenris had to give the man credit; he never flinched at the Orlaisian nobles' scandalized whispers about the Amell heir sleeping with an elf. 

"Is is a canapé?"

"How did you know?" Hawke said, astonished. 

"I payed a spy to follow you," Fenris answered. He was reclined on their mattress; the plush bedspread was obscenely, excessively opulent, but he had to admit it felt nice against his skin. The lack of corpses was another nice touch, he felt. Perhaps he should reconsider his stance on the Orlesians. They had a knack for interior design.

"That wasn't good of you. You should take my boots off to make it up to me," Hawke said. He sprawled beside Fenris and lifted his heels hopefully.

"Take your own boots off, you layabout."

"You could take off your pants?" Hawke tried.

Fenris thought about suggesting they both take off their pants, but he was wearing nearly as thin as Isabela had insinuated. He didn't sleep well here, however luxurious the beds, and he didn't trust Tallis. 

"Not tonight," he finally said. He watched Hawke's face as he said it; Hawke had assumed the bland, friendly expression he used when he was trying to escape attention, but Fenris had learned to watch the eyes and Hawke's eyes now were keen and calculating.

"Fenris," Hawke said. "I know."

And that, Fenris was terrified to realize, meant that he truly _knew_ ; he knew exactly what Fenris dreamt about, and why he was reluctant to discuss it. No, Fenris wasn't reluctant—he was afraid, and he hated himself for it, and more than that he hated Danarius so much it was making him sick.

"Alright then," Hawke said, and rolled to his feet. He started across the room, shedding clothing as he went. When he returned he was in his smalls and carrying a thick tome retrieved from his pack.

"Just some light reading," he said. "Hope you don't mind if I keep a candle lit, but I have another three thousand pages to go. It's tedious, but I suppose if I don't read it nobody will."

Fenris's throat felt dry. "Is that—is it magic?"

"Family history, I'm afraid," Hawke said. "You would not believe the things my great-grandmother got up to. Oh!" he said, and Fenris, whose heart had only just stopped thundering, started. But Hawke, infuriating man, merely said, "Mind if I eat your canapé?"

"Never," Fenris said, and rolled over to stare at the candle. It kept him company the whole night long.

-

At the tedious courtyard gathering where Tallis attempted to bribe, threaten, or seduce her way into information and Hawke leaned artlessly against walls, drinking wine and making off-color remarks, Fenris found himself cornered by a set of odious women who seemed to find his complexion "exotic" and his bare feet "charming." Isabela had absconded ages ago or potentially hadn't yet awakened; Fenris missed her sharp eye and sharper wit nearly as much as he missed his sword. If nothing else, watching Isabela lift coin purses from the unaware nobility made for a more entertaining gathering. (He didn't strictly approve of stealing, but he did agree with survival, and Isabela was excellent at that.) He escaped before they could cajole him into playing their asinine game, something about picking out a lie about other revelers, and loitered in a corner by the fountain. Most of the guests seemed to mistake him for either a guard or a servant.

"You seem a little lost, my friend," a voice said, in an Orlesian accent thicker than the Empress's. "Is this your first visit to the Chateau?"

The woman addressing him would have approached his height even without her ornate footwear; she was willowy rather than sturdy, and her hair was a shade somewhere between flame and true ginger. She had friendly eyes and a ready, genuine smile. Fenris didn't trust her in the least.

"Yes," he said.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you seem to have little patience for the games favored here," the woman said. "You must find us very dull, with our ribbons and our wordplay."

"Not dull," Fenris said, unwilling to be impolite although he had been fantasizing about helping Sebastian sweep the chantry mews. "Different, yes."

"And I've heard it said that variety is the season of life's dish," she said. "I'm sorry, you must think me rude! My name is Leliana."

"Fenris. A pleasure."

"Isn't it?" she said, and seemed to believe so. She was disconcerting in her sincerity, and yet Fenris had no trouble imagining that she played the game very well indeed. He found himself searching her hands, her face, her eyes in a fit of paranoia. "Oh," she continued, "you're one of the Champion's companions, aren't you? I thought I recognized your face."

"Something like that," Fenris said dryly. Hawke would no doubt prefer to characterize his friends as an entourage—

"He's an apostate, isn't he?"

Fenris felt a burst of energy that might have been lyrium or adrenaline. At least in certain circles it was well known that Hawke hadn't been fostered in the Circle, but the information was still both privileged and dangerous.

"Hawke isn't affiliated with the Circle in Kirkwall," he said, with all the care of a halla stepping into a dragon's lair.

"I've known such unaffiliated persons," Leliana replied. Her lips, fascinatingly expressive, twisted in a sort of amused camaraderie. "Sometimes it's up to those close to them to act as a guard. Templars, of a sort."

"I...suppose." He was frustrated that he couldn't pinpoint why she raised his hackles, but raise them she did.

"Listen to me chatter on! How have you enjoyed your stay at the Chateau? I head you participated in the Duke's wyvern hunt."

Blood-sport had never appealed to Fenris and he was about to say so when he sensed Hawke appear at his shoulder as if summoned. The man might have been a demon, if any demon demonstrated such patience in teaching a former slave his letters. 

"Fenris," Hawke said, and like Leliana his tone held layers of meaning. "And Sister Nightingale! Nice to see an old friend."

"Ser Hawke. I was just starting to know your friend. You always travel in such interesting company!"

"I can't stand being bored," Hawke said. "Thank the maker I'm not the only one who likes a little bit of adventure with my breakfast, eh Sister?"

"I've known people who prefer adventure three times a day," Leliana said, "and still manage to have an appetite after dinner. I've monopolized your time, Champion, but I do hope we'll have the opportunity to meet again. Please pass my regards along to Tallis."

"I wouldn't count on it," Hawke said. "Good day, Sister." He herded Fenris away—with nothing as proprietary as a hand on the elbow, although Fenris would have been that blatant or more—and Fenris, for once, followed without protest. 

" _That_ is Sister Nightingale?"

"That's Sister Nightingale, all right. You didn't believe me, did you?"

"I believe you now. She didn't seem dangerous."

"No."

"I still don't like her."

Hawke smiled. "Really?" he said. "I find her absolutely delightful."

"You're a terrible man and I hope you die."

"Wish a little harder," Hawke said. "It'll take something bigger than a dragon to take me out, and I haven't met anything that large yet."

-

Fenris didn't gloat when the lark with Tallis turned into a web tangled with Qunari and deceit; he didn't take pleasure in Hawke's life growing more complicated, and not only because it made his own life more difficult as well. Tallis had vanished with her list of operatives, Prosper had been put down—not before Hawke had the last word, of course; fallen from grace indeed—and Fenris was eager to be back to Kirkwall, where at least the more dangerous personalities didn't mask their proclivities with finger-food.

"Why can't we hire a wagon?" Isabela moaned. She trailed behind them by a length, her boots streaked with dust from the road. Isabela seemed to diminish when inland.

"Wagons cost money," said Hawke, the pinchpenny.

"But I don't _like_ walking," Isabela said. "If I wanted to walk, I'd be a highwayman, not a pirate."

"Highwaymen ride," Fenris said. "And hire a wagon yourself, if you have the coin."

She didn't and he knew it; Isabela spent money as fast as she earned it, on wine and women and hats and whatever shiny knife caught her fancy. Fenris could almost understand why she'd become a pirate and a successful one at that when he considered her personal fiscal policy. After that she fell even further behind and started to sulk.

"I wonder how long it would've taken to walk from Lothering to Kirkwall. Would it cost more to hire passage on a ship or to buy the provisions for a foot journey? Aveline doesn't like the sea—she threw up on my boots _twice_ when we crossed," Hawke said.

"I want to talk to you," Fenris said.

"About Aveline?" Hawke said. "She seems quite happy with Donnic, although I'm still willing to set her up with Varric if you are."

"With—don't be idiotic. About Leliana, Hawke."

"That doesn't seem like a very productive line of conversation."

"You've met her before," Fenris said. Hawke dropped his eyes and straightened his red sash, which meant he didn't want to discuss the topic but also didn't want to damage their relationship by lying outright.

"When she came to Kirkwall to track the Resolutionists. Sebastian and I met her in the Chantry, if you'll recall, and frankly, frankly I don't see why—"

"Where did you meet her?"

"You won't like it if I tell you," Hawke admitted.

"Do I ever?" Fenris said. Hawke fell into stubborn silence; they'd been trying to argue less, but unfortunately Hawke often used avoidance as an alternative. Fenris sighed. "Fine, hold your tongue. At least you haven't lectured me on the Resolutionist philosophy."

"Don't make it sound like I agree with them."

"Don't you?" Fenris said. "Sometimes I wonder."

"How about a game?" Hawke said brightly. "We could play—"

"No."

"Or maybe—"

"No."

"You could tell me—"

"Not in public.

"There's always Two Lies."

"I don't know how to play that," Fenris said. 

Hawke waved a negligent hand and almost smacked it into a stone outcropping. "Oh, it's simple enough. I picked it up from Lord Cyril's daughters. Apparently it's all the rage in Orlais."

"I don't like it."

"The only game you like is Wicked Grace," Hawke said. "Here, I'll go first. I tell you three things, and you tell me which one is true."

Fenris groaned. He suddenly understood why Hawke, who was a silver-tongued scoundrel if ever there was, had been taken with something the rich and idle played when they were in their cups.

"Mmm," Hawke said, and tilted his head back, thinking or studying the sky. Fenris admired the lines of his jaw and throat, obscured as usual by beard stubble; Hawke often neglected to shave for two or three days in a row and his thick, dark hair came in fast. "All right, here it is: I've kissed the Queen of Ferelden, bee stings give me hives, and I apprenticed to a blacksmith in Lothering."

Fenris watched the trees roll past—he'd been reading a treatise on bow craft, and could now tell an ash from a yew by the wood grain—and then remembered something Hawke's mother had told him. "The third."

"Cheater," Hawke said, but with affection. "I know Mother told you about that."

"I don't know if three months making a nuisance of yourself out of boredom counts as an apprenticeship," Fenris said. "That's hardly a game, either. I'd be more entertained if you asked me to recite ports on the Waking Sea."

"Did someone mention ports?" Isabela called. "Are we playing a game?"

"Fenris has just agreed to read me a list of cities!" Hawke called back. "It has to potential to be quite erotic!"

"Oooh," Isabela said, and hurried to catch up. "Make him sing, Hawke!"

"Sing yourself," Fenris replied, and lived to regret it. She burst into a shanty tawdry enough to burn a man's ears clean off his head. Hawke joined in on the chorus. Fenris, who had once had a healthy sense of propriety, couldn't bring himself to feel shamed, even when they passed a chantry cleric gathering elfroot by the roadside.

-

Nevertheless, a certain security returned with Kirkwall's stone bulwarks. Fenris had traveled far although he was not yet middle-aged, but he had done so out of necessity rather than enjoyment. He didn't want to grow old in Kirkwall, stinking cesspool that it was, but he didn't have sleep with his sword propped against one shoulder and that was...something.

He felt relief to be back in his mansion in Hightown. It was disconcerting, until he realized he was likely glad to be rid of Hawke for the night. Fenris maintained his own quarters out of necessity; there were lengths of time when he didn't want to speak to anyone, and not because he was brooding, thank you. He slept restlessly and rose early the next morning. The autumn air was cool and carried the balm of sea, as it always did.

Aveline was at her desk despite the hour when he knocked at her door in the Viscount's Keep. Fenris respected Aveline. She was _competent_.

"Fenris. Something I can do to you?"

"I thought someone should let you know we'd returned," he said. "Also, your whetstone. My thanks." He set it on the corner of her desk; she'd loaned it to him last week, frustrated with the state of his equipment.

"Not a problem. I suppose I'd find Hawke by the trail of destruction he wreaks, but it's kind of you to think of me anyway. I've been running the drills you suggested," she added. "I doubt our recruits will ever be as deft with a greatsword as you, but they're certainly quicker on their feet than they were."

"Good to hear. Have you found the reason behind the increase in lyrium flow?"

Aveline sighed. "No, I'm afraid not. We can't strictly control a substance like that, but it's wise to keep an eye on anything addictive and freely traded. I haven't been able to trace it to any one source."

"Any help from the templars?"

"Cullen tries, you know, but the Knight-Commander has tied his hands. Although," she said, and looked speculative, "if a certain friendly ear were around, he might be willing to drop a lead into an otherwise neutral conversation..."

"I'll see what I can do," Fenris said.

"Understood," Aveline said, and with that returned to her paperwork. He let himself out, ducked around a trio of political attaches, and stopped briefly at the Chantry to make a meager donation on his way to the Gallows. Fenris wasn't an Andrastian, but neither was he blind to the good the Chantry did. At very least it would stop Sebastian from quibbling with Hawke for a few days.

Cullen was at his usual post outside the prison that housed the mages. Wary as he was of magic and those who lived and died by it, Fenris struggled to understand why they allowed themselves to be housed in such a debasing part of the city. The days when bodies of flesh rather than iron ornamented the streets were not far behind.

"Guard-Captain Vallen sent you, didn't she," Cullen said before Fenris could greet him. "She's persistent, I'll give her that, but no amount of persistence will create a lead where there is none."

"It is her duty to see conspiracies behind every barrel, create, and pile of filth," Fenris responded. 

"Better to be over-zealous than under, I suppose." The Knight-Captain shifted almost imperceptibly, no doubt resettling his massive armor. "Would you pass along a message to Hawke for me?"

"Perhaps I should trade my sword for a homing bird and become an errand boy," Fenris said. "What do you need me to tell him?"

"Ah, that is—I found one of the Qunari blades he was looking for. It's in my quarters, if he'd like to pick it up. He's rather fickle, working for the Qunari after killing the Arishok."

"'Fickle' is too mild a word."

"I knew his cousin," Cullen said. 

"From Ferelden's Circle?" Fenris was curious; he'd met Hawke's mother and hadn't liked her, and he'd met Carver, who seemed determined to be everything his elder brother was not, but neither reflected much of Hawke's character except by absence. 

"Was she much like him?" he asked.

"In some ways," Cullen said. "Few women were her equal, but she was a little..."

"Unhinged?"

"Creative, I was going to say, but that might be too mild a word." 

There was more to that tale, Fenris suspected, but it was probably a story better suited to a cavernous pub and an endless supply of beer served by a bar wench with an ample bosom.

"That bad?"

"Worse," Cullen said, "and I didn't know her well." For a man who didn't know her well, he knew her awfully well, Fenris thought.

-

Feeling, if not happy, then something dangerously close to content, Fenris's feet carried him to Hawke's manor. Meredith's templars—out in droves, more and more with each passing day—eyed him suspicously when he crossed their paths, but for once their regard didn't set his skin to crawling. Danarius was dead, and Fenris—Fenris had a roof over his head, a lover in his bed, and enough money in his pocket to pay off his Wicked Grace debts.

 _That_ notion seized him and sent him down the long way to Hawke's. ("The long way" took him directly past Hawke's door on his way to the pub, which Fenris chose to ignore with as much dignity as he could muster.) At the Hanged Man he paid Varric, listened to Isabela insult his posture, and found he had coin for not one but two rounds of drink. Two turned into three, and three flowed into four without a dram of regard for Fenris's better sense. It was well into the witching hours when he let himself into Hawke's home.

The dog, odious thing, had sprawled itself in front of the fireplace. Its master was nowhere to be found; not in the main hall, nor the living room, nor the courtyard. Fenris finally located Hawke in the library, where he sat on the floor before the hearth. He had a bottle of wine dangling from one hand; lubricated as he was, Fenris approved.

"Not in the mood right now, Fenris," Hawke said mildly.

"What is it—"

"I do mean it," Hawke said. "No arguments tonight, please."

Fenris thought about leaving; Hawke was no fun when he was serious. Instead he took three steps into the room and dropped to the ground, stretching his legs toward the fire.

"You don't listen very well," Hawke drawled.

"There's a saying about that and what a hypocrite you are, but I don't remember it."

"Mmm." Hawke took a long pull from his bottle. Probably something cheap; he didn't know good wine from wyvern droppings.

Fenris stared at the banked fire and let himself drift. Hawke's uncharacteristic mood aside, there were worse ways to spend an evening. Danarius had allowed him near a fire only to admire Fenris in the flattering light; in retrospect, it was clear that Danarius might fling himself into the flames and thus escape his chains, although at the time Fenris had thought it just another of his master's little cruelties.

"I was named after my father, you know," Hawke said, abrupt.

"I hadn't realized." Fenris thought about this, and then thought about how ungracious Hawke was in not sharing his wine. "I was named after a god, I think."

"Modest as ever. I do have a point, though. He was a mage, too—my father, not your god—which is why Bethany and I turned out as wicked as we did. Although I suppose there's the illustrious lineage of the Amells to consider, but Father was...unlike any mage of the Circle."

Like his son, Fenris didn't say.

"He used to say that magic should serve that which is best in us. It's an idea I fail to uphold on an hourly basis, but the more time I spend in this city the more I understand his point."

Fenris drew his knees defensively to his chest; he was far too drunk for this conversation. Hawke's frustration was boiling in the air live a living thing, crackles of electric tension and the smell of ozone giving the room a suddenly viperous feel. Hawke didn't appear to realize his control had slipped.

"Do you remember the day you fought the Arishok?" Fenris said, at last.

Hawke snorted. "It isn't a day I'm likely to forget."

"You were dressed for war. It was—" Here was dangerous territory, with a memory burned into his mind as clearly as the lyrium into his skin. Hawke, who carried a staff topped with a nude carving of a woman, whose highest aspiration was to drive his younger brother into constant irritation, had arrived on the Viscount's steps wearing armor dented from battle and carrying a polearm balanced with a blade the length of his forearm. Hawke was a bad mage, but he was a relentless fighter.

Fenris had thrilled at the sight, and even now the echo of that arousal sat in his throat like a heavy stone of shame.

"Surprising. It was surprising, to watch you hold your own," he finished. "In spite of my prejudices, I found it—" He paused, and found he couldn't go on.

"Power is attractive," Hawke said, eyes fixed on the mantle.

"The appeal is not foreign to me. I may not agree with your stance on magic—"

"How can you not?" Hawke interrupted. "You, who were a slave?"

"Slaves don't possess powers that permit them to slaughter at will!"

"Oh? I suppose those tattoos of yours are purely decorative, then."

Fenris looked away. "I'm not most slaves."

"Most mages aren't Danarius," Hawke said, and then sighed. "And I said I didn't want to argue. Look at us."

"All those deaths," Fenris said. "You can't agree that every man or woman who threatens an apostate's freedom deserves such a dark end."

"Of course not. That goes against—Fenris, we're never going to agree on this, and that's fine, it really is. I would, however, adore it if you didn't flinch every third time I touch you."

"It isn't as if I can control—"

"No, I know," Hawke said, rather than protesting or making the expected off-color remark. "My fault, not yours. I have something I'd like to give you that I hope will start to remedy that, though."

Fenris wasn't sure what to say. He and Hawke had managed perhaps four conversations of any real depth in the entire span of their acquaintance. He finally settled on, "I hadn't realized you were so concerned."

"I am," Hawke said, and rolled to his feet. He took a small vial from the shelves to the left of the mantle, and when he sat again he faced Fenris.

"The Qunari call mages 'dangerous thing,' and their keepers 'holds back evil,'" he said.

"This is to be a cultural lesson, I take it," Fenris said. "Or—please tell me you aren't proposing."

"Oh, shut up." Hawke thrust the vial into Fenris's hand. It was half the size of a coin purse, made of opaque green glass and sealed with a wax stopper.

Fenris turned it over and then, glancing through his fringe at Hawke, sniffed it delicately. "It isn't an aphrodisiac, is it?"

"No," Hawke said. "It's a phylactery."

"A _phylactery_?"

"Just take it. You won't be able to do much with it other than track me, but it will help in a pinch. I might be able to teach you a binding spell, those pretty marks of yours have to be good for something."

"I don't deserve this," Fenris said.

Hawke rolled his eyes. "I don't know what you imagine your great sin is—or mine, for that matter—Andraste's tits, take the damn thing and don't talk any more, all right?"

"Flattering. All the girls in Lothering must have swooned at your sweet nothings. Hawke—" Fenris was, despite his effort at glibness, stunned.

Hawke shot him a dirty look and turned away to grope for the wine.

"Malcolm," Fenris said. "Thank you."

"Yes, well. It's not as though I'm not chained to you anyway. Might as well make it formal." He clearly resented the thought, and yet he'd given Fenris the phylactery against his nature.

Fenris wished he could give the thing back. He wished he could dash it on the floor or turn it over and empty it of Hawke's blood. He didn't. The phylactery was a comfort. Hawke knew it; Fenris knew it; pointless to pretend otherwise.

"May I stay the night?" Fenris asked, because he knew of no better way to acknowledge Hawke's offering. For a moment he thought Hawke would refuse him, but then the man looked up. His eyes were glittering.

"Maker, yes," Hawke said.

And then they went upstairs and passed an enjoyably lewd night; and in the morning, Hawke made canapés.


End file.
